1. Field of the Invention
Apparatuses consistent with the present invention relate to fiber optic splice trays. More particularly, the present invention relates to fiber optic splice trays that include structures to hold the spliced pairs of optical fibers.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to join optical fibers from two or more optical fiber cables, the optical fibers must be spliced to allow the optical signal to pass with minimal loss or reflection from one optical fiber to the next. Also, there are often many fibers in optical fiber cables. In order to join optical fiber cables, each optical fiber in an optical fiber cable must be individually spliced with a corresponding optical fiber of another optical fiber cable to form spliced pairs of optical fibers. Fiber optic splice trays have been used in order to hold these spliced pairs of optical fibers.
However, prior fiber optic splice trays were only able to hold a small number of spliced pairs of optical fibers. Therefore, many fiber optic splice trays were necessary in order to join optical fiber cables that have many optical fibers. Additionally, transition trays were necessary when the number of fibers exceeded the capacity of the tray. One problem with the prior fiber optic splice trays was that using multiple fiber optic splice trays and transition trays makes instillation cumbersome and increases material and labor costs.
It is an object of this invention, as embodied in the non-limiting and exemplary embodiments disclosed herein, to overcome or avoid these problems, and increase the ease of use and lower the material and labor costs of installing fiber optic splice trays. Also, it is an object of this invention to increase the capacity of fiber optic splice trays.